A new type of journalism in the digital age: SEO journalism

One can claim that communication is one of most affected fields by the technological developments. With the digitalization process, it has become possible to talk about a cycle in which communication and technology redefine each other. In this particular era called 'digital age' vital practices have gained new dimensions; One of the areas where this movement was most strikingly reflected was the media. Journalism practices have also diversified in the digital media environment, where new tools and new experiences and habits converge. With the development of web technologies, the production, transmission, consumption, perception and feedback aspects of news have gained new features. Journalism activities on the Internet have been constructed according to algorithms and shaped by concepts such as big data and artificial intelligence. At this point, search engines are one of the most important tools that let producers to convey their news to consumers. Google, which is in a very different position compared to its competitors with its usage rate and market share, reveals a structure that has serious effects on journalism with the wide variety of functions it performs, beyond being a search engine. The type of journalism we refer to as "SEO (Search Engine Optimization) journalism", in which news is created and presented by optimizing for search engines and especially Google, includes important applications that shape journalism in the digital age. This study that deals with the digitalization process of the media through journalism aims to present the structure of journalism shaped by search engine algorithms by associating it with the prominent concepts of digital media. In the last part of the study, a research was conducted with the qualitative research method. Within the framework of the appropriate sample, interviews were held with the SEO managers of the news sites. With the help of that interviews, the structure and problems of the "SEO journalism" were analyzed.